ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Horodowich, Andrea Rizzi
Rocking the boat: Language and Identity on the early modern gondola
Through the analysis of a collective range of sources, this chapter offers a first step toward a social and cultural history of gondoliers. Copious archival evidence demonstrates that sixteenth-century boatmen were well-known in the city for their insolence, and that their words were regularly perceived as threatening and dangerous. By considering their verbal acts and investigating gondoliers’ use of spoken language in everyday life – as well as the relationships of power inherently embedded and reflected in them – this essay seeks to suggest some of the ways we might begin to better understand boatmen’s identity in Renaissance Venice and shed light on the Venetian patriciate’s complex legal and social relationships with this disruptive yet indispensable community of workers.
